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Seamless Shooting with DOP Sebastian Klinger & the Misfit Atom
It is every filmmaker’s dream: to have your work recognised on the global stage and given the opportunity to expand on it. In the run-up to the release of his latest feature, Sew Torn, we spoke to DOP Sebastian Klinger about how his lightweight FX6 setup – including our Misfit Atom matte box – was used.
A Stitch in Time
Sew Torn started as a short film, directed by Freddy Macdonald as an application for the American Film Institute (AFI). A big swing, but the film was a hit: with Macdonald becoming the youngest ever member accepted into the AFI and the film being picked up by Searchlight Pictures.
After the short’s success, Klinger and Macdonald reunited to turn 6 minutes into 96 minutes: weaving a larger tale of crime and consequences around the original premise. Returning to the town of Bad Ragaz in Switzerland where the original short was produced, the film shot in 2022 and premiered at SXSW last March.
Sew Torn follows Barbara (Eve Connolly): a struggling seamstress whose choices get her tangled in a criminal syndicate. For hints on the “how” and “why”, check out the 2019 short:
The film is a tale of choices: following parallel strands from Barbara’s decisions when she discovers the aftermath of a shootout on the road – No Country for Old Men, if Josh Brolin preferred sewing to shooting. In fact, it was actually No Country’s own Joel Coen who encouraged the team to expand Sew Torn.
Serving dual roles as both producer and cinematographer, Klinger has been there on every step from script to screen.
There was a linear version of the narrative in the beginning, which our writing duo Freddy and Fred Macdonald revised a lot in more than 20 drafts. I marvel at the originality, tension and fun they come up with in their stories – and the feature-length Sew Torn script was no different. I’ve just never read anything like it.
Usually as the cinematographer, I can’t help but immediately think about challenges and how to overcome them. The film takes place during six hours on one single day and mostly in one Swiss mountain valley. This challenged me to find ways of making it look interesting enough and still creating a diversity of landscapes, spaces and lighting conditions.
As producer on the project and having a close relationship to Freddy and Fred, I was able to actually give notes on the script – like suggesting the six hours move into dusk for more interesting lighting.
Cut from the Same Cloth
If you’ve watched the short, then the feature will feel somewhat familiar. But even having a Coen in your corner can be double-edged sword. How do you effectively expand a film as succinct and successful as Sew Torn?
When we shot the short film six years ago, we had very limited resources and only a crew of four people. It was all shot on one day, so the schedule didn’t allow for sophisticated rigs or time-consuming lighting.
However, after it got picked up by Searchlight Pictures and screened in theatres in the US, audiences didn’t mind its low-budget character. And since the short became so popular we couldn’t afford to do something completely different for the feature and potentially make it worse. So, we decided to stay very close to the short tonally because we knew it worked.
The short itself is recreated as a scene in the feature, highlighting similarities between the two productions – but also the differences. The roadside robbery serves as the inciting incident, whilst the film expands on the events before and – crucially – after. Barbara’s cover-up is now just one of three choices she can make.
Naturally, now we had a crew of 25 people making everything much smoother. We still needed to shoot it on one single day, but I had better lighting tools at my disposal, the make-up was done professionally and a detour for the road allowed us to worry less about traffic. While there certainly was some pressure to make it better the second time, it’s been incredibly fulfilling to return to the exact same place we’ve been years ago and kind of tell the same story in a slightly different way.
Funnily, that day was kind of a validity check: if the sequence worked, we knew the rest of the feature would work, too. So when wrapping that day, it was a very satisfying feeling of knowing we got it right.
Scaling up any production comes with its own downsides: an extended call sheet of crew members are reliant on you, not to mention the pressures of a larger budget. A daunting step up, but Klinger took it in his stride by keeping to the same shooting philosophy that had served the original short.
I think in any larger production, it’s important not to lose sight of the narrative and the intention of every scene. Always consulting my shot list definitely helped me to stay in the necessary mindset since I was aware that the entire team was counting on me to get the shot.
I tried not to get too wrapped up in equipment and lighting rigs, but instead keep the pace quick and not have people wait. This stems from the workflow I developed with Freddy over the years, where we’d run around with the camera shooting inserts even after everyone else had wrapped.
As a producer, one of the challenges was also to find adequate housing for both cast and crew in a remote Swiss mountain valley and not make much of a footprint on the daily lives of the villagers. However, with a population of only 400, the village welcomed the film team very warmly and made the four weeks of shooting an unforgettable experience – thanks to ORISONO, our wonderful Swiss production company.
New Threads
In contrast to the expanded production, the camera rig itself was barebones and featherweight. Sew Torn shot on a Sony FX6 (occasionally swapped out for an A7SIII) setup with barely any attachments beyond the G Master lenses. To keep that setup as lightweight as possible, Klinger used the Misfit Atom matte box.
I think I’ve always wanted to shoot the feature-length Sew Torn on a rather lightweight rig – inspired by the shooting style that made Freddy and me work so efficiently for years. However, it was only four months before principal photography that I used the FX6 with the same rig on a commercial shoot. That shoot made me realize that this might be ideal for the feature, too.
I’ve used the Misfit Atom matte box before only once on that same commercial shoot. My go-to rental house in Zurich, OCTAMAS rental, recommended it to me to use with the FX6, and it proved to be the perfect fit.
Even on the most minimal of rigs, a matte box helps to add cinematic flair, without adding flares. And even ten years on from its release, our Misfit Atom is a powerhouse used by filmmakers across the world.
On every shooting day, the Misfit Atom was indispensable. Attached with the 15mm LWS Kit for stability, it matched the FX6’s handiness and minimal weight perfectly. It helped minimise light spilling into the lens, and allowed me to use a Tiffen Glimmerglass filter for some soft halation around the highlights, which I found very pleasing to take off the digital edge from the clean Sony image.
For car rigs, I had to come up with creative solutions to rig the Misfit Atom to the A7SIII. I ended up attaching it through several rods upside down!
Though this improvised solution didn’t work perfectly – bumpier roads and faster driving tended to shake the filters – the Misfit Atom still helped Klinger create a consistent look across Sew Torn.
On countless occasions, the Carbon Fibre Top Flag helped eliminate light leaks, especially considering that we were shooting in the Swiss Alps where the sun was often harsh and shining right into the lens from a low angle. What I appreciate about the Top Flag’s design is that you always have a lens cap with you if you just close it.
The Misfit Atom matte box played a vital part in the simplicity of the rig, allowing me to efficiently capture the 70+ shots we needed to get on some days. I don’t think there’s another matte box system I like as much, considering the benefits of its lightweight design and efficient use.
Shooting the three threads of consequence that spiral out from Barbara’s decision provided fresh challenges, but Klinger’s minimalist rig meant that he could remain adaptable even in unfamiliar shooting scenarios.
The most challenging – and rewarding – sequence to shoot was the explosion of the fabric store. This happened on our very last shooting day and became a big attraction for curious townspeople. Capturing an explosion on camera was new for me, both exciting and a little frightening, with firefighters standing by and only having one chance to do it.
The main challenge with the explosion was that it needed to happen in a very small time window of 15 minutes as there were regular buses running in front of the store that couldn’t be stopped – and the fact that I wanted to be right in front of it with the camera in hand. Oliver Keller and his incredible Special Effects team built me a safe box and made sure to shoot out the fireball with the utmost precision, allowing the bus to pass with no incident or delay.
As it was the last shooting day, the entire team acted like a well-oiled machine: knowing each other for a month now, trusting each other and wanting to see this through. After that day we weren’t a film team anymore. We were a family.
Sew Torn releases in the UK on the 31st March 2025 and Summer 2025 in the US.
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